Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

Y’all bitches strapped in? This is gonna get weird.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.

TAP TAP

Testing, testing. This mic working? Check for sibilance. Sibilance.

TAP TAP

Ahem.

…

Pee-pee parties.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities.

As everyone saw yesterday, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats is a giant pussy, and he didn’t want to tell Trump that we all knew about the pee-pee parties. Seriously: giant pussy, and smells like milk.

We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect.

Every one of my former colleagues can suck on my hairy nuts for making me do that, by the way.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves “turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

As you are in the United States Congress, I’m going to assume at least half of you couldn’t spell “dog” if you had your assistant do it for you, and I will spell out the basics of my job in simple and direct sentences containing the smallest words possible. My hand to God: I thought about making visual aids for you cretins.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him.

Did you hear that? Sean Hannity just got a hard-on. Regardless of how precisely I worded this to indicate that at the time there was no personal case, this will be the only thing that all of the worst people on Twitter hear.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) — once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months — three in person and six on the phone.

Shit’s fucked up, yo. Normalizing has become weaponized.

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

I didn’t need to include the thing about my family, but I chose to because of how odd it was.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

Not to pat myself on the back, but I painted a fucking word picture there. I’m killing this shit.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

It was halfway through the sentence in which I explained basic civics to the man entrusted with the nuclear codes when the floor became a mouth, spittle-filled and lashing tongue and made of teeth so many teeth there was a roar I do not think came from me but I did not know where I ended and the mouth began there were teeth so many teeth.

A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.

Much like a Tyrannosaur, the president’s vision works off movement. After ten seconds of stillness, the president no longer sensed me. He went back to his food, concentrating on his peas, which he pushed with his fingers onto his fork.

We simply looked at each other in silence.

Have you read Sartre? It was like that.

The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

Things the president talked about: his election victory, and how it was the greatest in American history; various successes; celebrities he wanted to have sex with; the snazziness of the Navy stewards’ uniforms; golf; one of his children. He also offered to take me on a White House tour four times.

At one point, the president asked me if he was allowed to order the CIA to assassinate Alec Baldwin. I initially assumed this ridiculous request to be a joke, but the president pushed the issue until I was forced to not move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way. He became confused and then changed the subject to how poorly Mika Brzezinski was aging.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because “problems” come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Then I had to explain what a paradox was. Swear to fucking Christ.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, “I need loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I paused, and then said, “You will get that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term — honest loyalty — had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

Senators, I sincerely believe that I could have said any word instead of “honest” and the president would have just jammed it in front of “loyalty” and repeated it.

“I need loyalty.”

You will always get serendipity from me.

“That’s what I want, serendipitous loyalty.”

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen.

The Commander-in-Chief of the greatest military force in the history of mankind doesn’t know you can’t prove a negative. He had a little bit of gravy on his lip, and he asked me to prove a negative.

I studied the faces of the Navy stewards to make sure neither of them was Allen Funt.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

I felt like the pretty blonde who makes it to the end of horror movies. Also, Jared Kushner has breath like a dung beetle.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.” Flynn had resigned the previous day.

He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE? Besides the fucking treason, I mean. This might have been the most shocked I was during this whole escapade, but because I am a professional, I did not move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information — a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

You see how I’m using the clock to reference the theme of time running out? And how I always mention that it’s a grandfather clock so that you’ll think of the sound it makes? Tick-tock, motherfuckers.

I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened — him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind — was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply.

He actually did reply: ten minutes on why the Puerto Rican race was inferior to the Cuban race, but both were superior to–and I am quoting–“the Illegal race.”

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.

I’m sure he’s telling the truth about the hookers. Sure, literally every time he denies something, it turns out to be true, but I’ll trust him on this one. No hookers.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week — at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation.

If you’re counting, this is the third time I’ve had to explain how the government works to the president.

He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.”

Even though it was a phone call, I did not move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

Thank you, good night, allahu akbar.

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6 Comments

My only quibble with this is in regard to your belief that DT could recognize the need to transform the noun “serendipity” into the adjective “serendipitous” and then successfully pull off that feat of basic grammar.

Other than that, this is horrifyingly spot-on, as we’ve all come to expect from ToTD. (The “spot-on” stuff is what we’ve come to expect, of course – the “horrifyingly” part is subject matter-dependent.)